Just Guitars is proud to be Australia's number one source for premium quality, vintage "Singing Cowboys" guitars. We always make a point on our American buying trips of tracking down the very best examples we can find, then offering them to our customers here at the lowest possible prices. We were lucky enough recently to score this very rare, first year Singing Cowboys model, fresh off the workbench of one of America’s most famous luthiers, who had just given it a full pro service, making it eminently playable. Braces have been checked and reglued in a couple of spots; tuners oiled & tightened; action has been lowered at the bridge, with new, deeper string slots; nut slots have been adjusted and smoothed; the fretboard has been cleaned and the frets polished – in other words, it’s rock solid, tip-to-toe. Intonation has been set, the guitar is freshly strung with a new set of Martin Lights and is all ready to move into your life.
Sears department stores
Built by Harmony in 1937, for marketing through the Sears catalogue and department store network, under the store’s original Supertone brand, (later Silvertone), this is the very first incarnation of the original Singing Cowboys model – in fact, it’s so early that it doesn’t yet feature the words ‘Singing Cowboys’, which were added the next year. (The following link will take you to a brief history of guitars, published in Vintage Guitar magazine – scroll about four-fifths of the way down, and you will come to a fascinating section, beginning at the "Cowboy Serenaders" heading. LINK)
Features
Thinline brass frets, red dot inlays, stamped trapeze tailpiece, wooden nut – all in great condition and ready to play, with nice, medium-low action. The neck boasts a decent V-profile – not quite the infamous "baseball bat" style, but smaller and very comfortable in the hand. Of particular note on this early design are the gunmetal finish, (Black on later models), and the lovely speckled fingerboard, representing the stars in the cowboy’s night sky.
All Hickory construction
Tall ladder braces help provide the much larger than expected sound from this superb piece of guitar history, from an age when quality and value for money really counted in American instrument making. While obviously not a dreadnought, the projection, thanks to those tall braces, is quite amazing. The bottom end is highly respectable, along with nicely balanced mids and shimmering highs, thanks to all Hickory construction. This is the standard-size model, too, not the later ¾ size. The guitar has a 24” scale, the lower bout measures 13¼”, and the overall length is 36”.
Historic photo
Picture # 3, above, is a real piece of history. It’s an old daguerreotype, taken on the western plains, showing a group of cowboys gathered around the campfire and chuck-wagon, enjoying some tunes under the night sky. With the subtle switch of changing banjos to guitars, this is the picture on which the Singing Cowboys design was based.
Free courier delivery
This fantastic example of a genuinely historic guitar ships in a late fifties/early sixties chipboard case. Courier delivery within Australia is FREE, ($100 airfreight to New Zealand, $175 to the US, Canada, UK and mainstream European countries).
Just Guitars
